Monday, August 31, 2009

Listen, I get it. It's the summer. Down time. Everyone's on vacation. News is hard to come by. The State Fair closed up last week and since the economy crashed no one has money to drink and drive. And the heat! Even murderers are waiting for the humidity to subside before getting back to work. Slow times at Ridgemont High. I get it.

But if you're going to cover the holy broom story, at least cover it right.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Now I'm in no position to judge the ways in which a man goes about finding the love of his life. I've wrangled up girls from bars, state colleges, and, most recently, my blog. I once even went out with a girl after my friend yelled at her and her friend off my fire escape as they walked by. (She was prettier from one story up.) But I'm fairly positive that of all the ways a man can meet a woman, posting a lengthy missed connection ad on Craigslist with a Sixth Sense-type surprise ending for a woman who doesn't even exist is definitely the worst way.

That being said, I made a new year's resolution and I'm sticking to it. Granted it was new year's 2008 and I've made no attempt whatsoever to stick to it until right now, but like my grandfather always said, there's no expiration date on not being an asshole.

Dear Dream Man,

This is truly a miraculous! I have envisioned the same dream you envision many times. Each detail is the similar – the bar coins, "Ludicrous" and the beautiful woman who appears as a more tan

Mikal from Wristcutters (my favorite band!)

Often I wake up from this dream in a heavy sweating, transfixtured on the mysterious woman who vanishes from my life (just like you!). I hope someday to meet her and to marry her, because of course I am the lesbian, who shares your dream of a goddess on the earth, who is in a dream, but hopefully on earth too.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Anyone in the mood for a blow out? How about a new 'do? Perhaps some bangs? Or maybe you just need a highlight in your vagina. (Overkilled it!) Well you're in luck, because it turns out you're already paying for it.

Never one to shy away from controversy, Allure has recently exposed the unique phenomenon of women sleeping with their stylists. To plebeians like you it may seem straightforward. Perhaps you think sleeping with your stylist is the same as sleeping with your bartender or handyman or gynecologist. You'd be wrong. Aside from a chocolate fountain, an affair with your hairstylist is the most important thing missing from your life.

Take it from Alix, who likens the forbidden dance of hair cutting to tried and true seduction tactics like a boxed wine or cunnilingus.

It's like a fairytale! Woman seeking hot guy with marketable skill and no personality on which to comment finds him in the unlikeliest of places – a place where she goes monthly and pays tons of money for him to touch her head for an hour. Like the end of My Girl, I never saw that coming. Nor did Meaghan, who was starstruck by her coiffeur.

A car? Sushi? A private hair washing room that exists in an alternate reality which is in some way detached from the "real world"?! That's some Vidal Sassoon-type shit. I'm almost convinced that banging your stylist is the new black, but first I need to hear the other side of the story.

While to my untrained heart the story of a man cutting a woman's hair in the bathroom at JFK may seem so mind-numbingly idiotic and unsexy that I wish there was a way to reverse masturbate to it, clearly I never went to J school. Nor have I ever liaised with my hair stylist – though in truth it wasn't for lack of trying.

The year was 2001. I was living on my own in New York city and involved in an on-again-off-again relationship with the girl who, in the annals of my girlfriend history, would later be known as "the crazy one." For convenience sake, I always got my hair cut at the same place: a trendy, though inexpensive salon around the corner from my apartment.

While I frequented the place almost monthly, I almost never got the same stylist twice. Appointment averse, I always just walked in and took whoever was available. That is, until I the luck of the draw led me to Sandy.

Sandy was a petite blond from Australia. She was friendly, though she dressed as though she may be moonlighting as a superhero crime fighter after work – black leather pants, tanks tops, etc. She was also tough as nails, as evidenced by the fact that she cut my hair with a razor blade. When I asked why, she said scissors were boring. To this day, I have no idea what that means, but will always be impressed by a woman who finds a potentially deadly object utterly unexciting.

I began making appointments to see her, and only her, every month. We developed a rapport, and got to the point where we would "catch up" on each other's lives. I was convinced that our relationship could exist outside the salon, but was always too shy to make the proposition.

Then one day I was walking past the salon on my way to the food store and there, sitting on the sidewalk up against the salon, was Sandy. As I got closer I noticed she was crying. "This is it," I thought. "This is the perfect opportunity." I would console her and she would see past my dirty blond hair and into my soul.

The only problem was that she was on the phone. Obviously I couldn't interrupt her call, but I also couldn't run the risk of her getting off the phone and going back inside before I had the chance to make her love me with my kind words and gentle hand. I decided the thing to do was linger just far enough away that I wouldn't be noticed, but that I could keep tabs on her and swoop in (casually, of course) just as she got off the phone. So I stood on the busy sidewalk, pretending to look in the window of a shop a few doors down, which was unfortunate because it was a medical supply store. "Nothing unusual here," my casual demeanor suggested. "Just window shopping for a new walker."

Out the corner of my eye I saw Sandy start to stand up, though she was still on the phone. I was getting nervous that I would miss my window of opportunity. Then, through a crowd of people, I saw her hang up. "Go!" my mind said. "GO! GO! GO!" I moved towards the store thinking, "Am I really going to do this?" and as I got closer I thought, "There is no way I can do this." But suddenly there I was, a few feet from Sandy. I tried to make eye contact, but she wasn't looking my way. I walked slower, trying to grab her attention. Then, just as she was turning to go back in the salon, and our eyes met. I smiled; she smiled. Then, right as I was about to speak, a person walking down the sidewalk cut between us. Like that, she was gone, back on the other side of the seemingly impenetrable divide: her a stylist, me just a customer.

A few months later she moved back to Australia and the salon raised their rate for a men's haircut by $5, so I stopped going.

So yes, I know what it is like to yearn for the forbidden fruit that is one's stylist. But perhaps it's all for the best that we never got together.

And at the end of the day, any woman can lick your cow, but it takes a special woman to service your cowlick.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Have you ever had funny sex? Not funny like "he drugged me" funny; funny like "haha" funny? Because Brooke and I occasionally do, and while you may think that chuckles and intercourse go together like rainbows and unicorns (weee!), it's actually a bit problematic, as evidenced by what transpired here yesterday. (TMI? Excuse yourself now. That means you, every person I'm related to.)

So Brooke got back from the gym at 7:00 and I was cooking corn. (With sentences like that, you may want to keep a glass of ice water handy for your loins.) Then Brooke said, "Let’s do it. Do you want me to shower first?" Roar! I thought about it for a second and opted for pre-shower because the corn was on.

Fact: When it comes to knockin' boots, plainly acknowledging what's happening is a mistake. Done properly, no one should ever be 100% aware of what they are doing during sex. Or it becomes like a highly choreographed fight scene that just looks fake. Real fights, like real sex, are chaotic messes of scratching, clawing, biting, kicking, and crying. It's never like, "Well, now I should punch you in the face." If you're going to punch your lover in the face, it should always be spontaneous.

The other problem is that this heightened self-awareness inevitably leads to laughter, which while good for the soul is awful for intercourse. After a few moments of awkward chuckles (she was wearing running sneakers), we managed to right the course. We had successfully purged all hints of humor – until I looked up. There on the other side of the bed was Puppy, gently rocking to and fro while staring off into the distance. He looked like a captain manning his ship over rolling seas; the only thing missing was a slight breeze in his fur.

Dramatic re-enactment*

It was an impossible situation. The more I moved, the more he moved. He was too far away for me to swat without Brooke noticing. A decision had to be made, and wanting to avoid yet another interruption I decided to close my eyes and forge through.

Afterwards, I clued Brooke into what had happened and reenacted the hilarious scene for her. But while Brooke's laughter was innocent and genuine, mine was tinged with something far less amusing: The knowledge that the last thing that went through my mind before the end was Puppy gently swaying at the foot of the bed with that wayward, far off look in his eye.

Dramatic re-enactment

________________________________________* Any questions on the making of the dramatic reenactment can be emailed to pleasedontaskmethat@redactedblog.com.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

You are such an asshole. Why are you such an asshole? What did I ever do to you? At least if you were Tetanus I could be like, "Maybe I shouldn't have eaten off that rusty picnic table," or if I had to cut my foot off because it was trapped under a boulder I could blame it on my poor judgment in mountain biking during an rock slide.

But you, you little son-of-a-bitch, you just came out of nowhere. I was all happy on Sunday night, minding my own business. Typical night: oral sex, bowl of cereal, a chapter in my book and then off to sleep. Then WHAM.

I just love using this video.

4:00 in the morning I wake to the odd sensation that my body is on fire in a meat locker. I grab Puppy for warmth and comfort, but he senses that something is wrong (probably from the tight, shaky grip I have around his neck) and he wriggles free. For the next hour I drift in and out of a hazy sleep filled with hallucinogenic dreams of soccer, which makes the long, torturous night seem even longer.

Monday morning. Boom, roasted. Literally. Brooke goes right into caregiver mode and I know I am really sick when she makes a naughty nurse joke and I feel nothing but the hollow depths of my overheating soul.

So there I am laying in the bed, huddled up in the fetal position under all of the blankets in Miami, kind of delusional while Puppy stares into my face from a few inches away, simultaneously not caring that Brooke is witnessing this pathetic scene and acknowledging that I definitely never intended for Brooke to witness a scene as pathetic as this. "Two years, ten months. That's how long we went before the thin veil of manliness was torn down." All because of you, you stupid asshole fever.

And the worst part is, aside from popping Tylenol like Flintstone vitamins, no one knows how to get rid of you. Like the old saying goes, "Feed a cold, starve a fever." Or is it, "Feed a fever, starve a cold?" However it goes, here's one thing it certainly is: the worst piece of medical advice ever, mostly because no one can fucking remember it.

At one point I had two blankets and a heating pad on me because Brooke was convinced I should sweat it out. When I weakly protested, "But won't it cook my organs?" she replied with a soothing, "Shhh." If that's your game, fever, to turn Brooke and I against each other – it won't work. Our love is . . . fuck I'm feeling light headed again. You asshole, I'm not done with you.

Where was I? Oh right, you're a dickweed, dickweed fever. If you were a person, you would be Glenn Beck's girlfriend. Because of you I haven't eaten anything except toast in two days. Tonight, I am supposed to go to a yacht party. Do you know what happens on yacht parties? Neither do I, and now I NEVER WILL because my body is ravaged from overheating like a menopausal dinosaur. And no, I don't have any idea what I'm talking about. Thanks to you.

All I know is you'd better not come back anytime soon. Because next time I'll be ready. I even made this handy diagram as a reminder for future use.

Because it's "Feed a cold, starve a fever." Not because colds are black and fevers are white. We're past that. Obama is president. Come on.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

(Brooke and I were given a digital picture frame as a gift. While hooking it up I found that there were several photos on there already. The instruction manual says that they are just sample pictures, meant to show you how the display will look. I like to think there’s more to the story.)

"Of course they know nothing. They are just children. Not even my children. Just kids."

This thought ran on a loop in Tony's brain as his family posed around him. "Not mine, not mine, not mine."

Of course he knew. He'd always known, regardless of the fact that he'd wished he hadn't. It was one of the many lies a man tells himself to avoid the unbearable conflict of a falsified life.

"How could she?" he'd wondered from time to time. But those questions were always drowned in another business trip, another holiday, another family vacation like this one.

No more. It was time for the truth to set him free. This picture would mark the end of the fraudulent family portraits; the end of the family altogether. Not that it was all bad. He would miss the soccer practices, the recitals, the look on his daughter's face when he handed her another trinket from a hotel gift shop in middle America.

"But I'm young enough," he convinced himself. "Young enough to start again. For real this time. No more faking it."

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

While staying at a beach house this past weekend, me and ten of my friends partook in such a heated game of Scattergories that men screamed, women cried, and the very fabric of our friendships was left more frayed than my girlfriend's jeans in 1995. Why? Because Scattergories is evil.

1. There's no rules. Did you know this? Presumably because everyone thinks they know how to play Scattergories, no one ever looks up how to play Scattergories. Which is a good thing, because if they did it wouldn't be much help. The official rules amount to something like 1. Roll the die. 2. Write down answers. 3. Count them up. The only concrete clarifications are:

- Zero points are given for duplicate answers.

- A player cannot use the same word for two different categories in a single round.

- 'A', 'An' & 'The' cannot be used as the start of an answer.

- If the answer is a persons name, then the first or last name can be used.

In other words, go fuck yourself. It's like when you were a kid and you played cops and robbers. The only rules to cops and robbers is that there are some cops and some robbers. Then halfway through the game, you (the robber) are riding away on your make-believe horse, and the policeman catches up to you on his real bicycle and you're like, "A bicycle could never catch a horse!" and your friend is like, "Oh yeah, well then how come I caught you?" and you're like, "Because you're on an actual bike!" and then your friend rides off down the street and the game is over.

All of which means . . .

2. You have to make up the rules. Fact: Rules aren't meant to be created by the masses. That's how Lord of the Flies happened. Even in a representative democracy, laws are drafted by professionals so that we're not all voting on Proposition 1378: Happy endings shall be a mandatory option on all massages costing over $100usd.

Our group tried to tackle the task civilly by going around the table and giving everyone the chance to explain how they play, but it soon became clear that all we were doing was providing a platform for everyone to disagree with how other people play. It was like a town hall meeting on health care reform, except instead of old people screaming about things they don't understand it was young people screaming about things that aren't really worth understanding. Some points up for discussion include:

- Do proper nouns count as duplicates, e.g. Alexander Hamilton and Alexander the Great. Clearly they are two different people (different answers, as it were) but do they cancel each other out since they are the same word?

- Modifiers: creative, or a cheater's bread and butter? Should a person get two points for "excellent eggs"? How about "eggs over easy"? Where does one draw the line between adjective and modifier in a compound noun?

- What level of ridiculousness will be tolerated? For a category like "Things you throw away," almost any answer can be acceptable. Babies, in fact, have been thrown away – but it is something you would throw away? And if your baby was burping, would you get two points?

4. It's political. Without a set of hard and fast rules, voting becomes a popular medium through which people assume a fair and logical conclusion can be made, except, of course, in the cases in which people do not vote for what you think is fair and logical. Vote enough times and you're bound to form alliances with like-minded players. One time a team that had steadfastly voted down outside-the-box answers, suddenly shifted gears and voted for "Optimum online" as a viable answer under the category "Tools." The sudden shift was so shocking that one team labeled it Scattergate.

5. It's subjective. So while one team gets credit for "Optimum online" as a "Tool," my team does not get credit for "lyrics" being an "Instrument" despite the fact that the dictionary defines an instrument as "a means whereby something is achieved, performed, or furthered," and if I asked you to name one song on the Billboard Top 10 right now that achieved success without utilizing lyrics YOU WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO. And I will prove my point with my fierce pointing.

But it's cool, I'm over it now.

6. Cheating is easy. Unless you audit everyone's answer sheet, it's impossible to tell if they are changing answers at the last minute, or simply saying an answer other than what they have written. This suspicion quickly breeds contempt. So much so that by the end of the game when "F" was rolled and the category was "Objects in the room," three of the answers were "frauds," "fucking fuckers" (two points!), and "fucktards."

ANGRY POINTING.

7. You can't drink for two minutes thirty seconds at a time. Ironically, during the most stressful part of the game (where you can't remember what the fuck the name of that goddamn river I even though you've driven past it like fifteen times and you know for a fact that it starts with a "P") you can't sip your cocktail. I tried once and immediately sprayed bourbon all over the table to ensure my friend got down American Apparel before time ran out. (Perhaps Brooke was on to something . . .)

8. Did I mention you have to make up the rules? It got to the point where an argument between me and Brooke about an answer was decided by a headstand contest.

Luckily I am very good at headstands and Brooke was sufficiently drunk.

9. It proves you are not as smart as you think you are. With the aforementioned incredibly loud timer mocking you as it ticks away the seconds of your pathetic, unfulfilled life, it's really hard to concentrate. So when the category "Politicians/World Leaders" comes up and, just before time runs out you suggest to your partner that he write down "Langley" because "They named CIA headquarters after him – he must be famous," and you lay out this very same argument to the other players while they scoff and snicker before informing you that Langley is, in fact, the name of the town, not the founder, it makes you feel a little stupid. It's cold comfort when your partner says, "I thought you said Lang Li, like some ancient Chinese ruler. I was excited about getting two points," because you realize that this is your partner.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

This is it for the week because tonight Brooke and I take off for a sunny, beachy, cocktail-filled vacation – basically just carrying on our normal everyday schedule but at a beach house in Long Island instead. (You could almost call it a staycation, but then you'd die, in accordance with the agreement I signed with myself earlier this year to eradicate the use of the phrase AT ALL COSTS.)

Also though it will be much different due to the fact that we'll be there with my parents and all our New York friends, meaning nude yoga is definitely out of the question* and we will have to pleasure each other sexually the old fashioned way, by secretly exchanging erotic and sometimes graphic notes to one another – though for all Brooke's prowess in the sack past experience indicates this method might be a bit unsatisfying.

The beach house is something of a tradition in my family. This will be our 11th, 12th, or 13th year going (I'm not big on traditions) and though it may seem silly to fly 2,000 miles to go to the beach when you live in Miami, the two locales couldn't be more different. Where we're going is a little town on Fire Island called DavisPark. The only way to get there is by ferry, and there's no cars – or roads for that matter – on the island. It's just one main boardwalk with a dozen or so sort offshoots leading to quaint bungalows and the occasional driftwood mansion. There's a fire station and a post office, though most of the addresses are something like "12 Sandy Lane" or "5 Board Walk," so I imagine people are too embarrassed to have anything important shipped there. There's no street lamps and very little cell phone reception and the overwhelming feeling is that you are secluded on a somewhat primitive island. I'm kind of describing it like the ideal place to commit a murder, but really it's quite lovely.

So that's where I'll be until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. In the meantime, have fun Yearbooking Yourself.

In 1960 big chins were all the rage.

___________________________________* Not that we've ever done that, but this definitely won't be the weekend we start.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

To recap: Ed was dating a couple of girls, but none of them were on a TV show so he decided to date Jillian because she was on a TV show. A few weeks in he was homesick for a romantic relationship that involved fewer than twenty men, so he e-mailed his girlfriend, "I'm coming home!", made up an excuse about pressing needs at the internet consulting factory, and went home.

So then he's back home banging his girlfriend and she's like, "We should go to a wedding." So they went to a wedding and took some pictures, but the wedding made Ed realize that he loved Gillian, so he told his girlfriend that he was going to Texas on a business trip, but by "Texas" he meant "Los Angeles" and by "business trip" he meant "a reality television show."

And Gillian, who was clearly deceived by Wes but says that there is no way she was deceived by Wes, was also deceived by Ed and is saying there's no way she was deceived by Ed.

Monday, August 3, 2009

A week or so ago, Brooke's dad (who has just recently learned to send text messages) called Brooke with this question: "When do I know to stop texting?"

Um, LOL? But seriously, it's not a bad question. Certain situations are easier than others. Like when you text a girl at 2:00 a.m. "Want to meet up?" and she texts back "Already home – maybe brunch tomorrow?" obviously the conversation is over.

But by and large the medium is a tricky format. Whereas you can ignore a phone call or put off responding to an e-mail, the whole point of a text message is instant communication. Once you have engaged in a conversation, you can't very well ignore it at will. Like this actual text conversation from a few months ago:

11:02 p.m. Friend: "Dude, did you watch Lost?"11:04 p.m. Me: "Yeah. This show is going bonkers."11:05 p.m. Friend: "I know. What's with all the insane time travel shit?"

But because husband and wife writer team Evie and Jack Shoeman are the only ones willing to write the definitive Text Messaging Survival Guide (Sally thought she knew what 'TTYL' meant. Sally was wrong – dead wrong), newcomers to text-messaging, particularly those who may be accustomed to the politesse of phone call sign-offs like "Goodbye" or "Go to hell, crap bag!", are left floundering to decipher the rules. (Like how when my mom first started instant messaging she would finish every message with "Love, Mom." Like "Good morning, Dan! Love, Mom.")

And when they go to more experienced texters for guidance (like Brooke's dad did), novices are met with confused looks or pitiful head-tilts meant to convey a sympathetic appreciation for the quaint notion that there are no stupid questions, only stupid people who are afraid to ask questions, because boy that was a stupid question.

(Note: Brooke's dad is in white, and hasn't yet figured out auto-spelling or how to punctuate.)

But the thing it, it's not a stupid question! Think about it: When do you know to stop texting? It's like the old, "I love you," "No, I love you," "You hang up first," "No, you hang up first!" conversation which goes back and forth until someone literally drowns in a saccharine mess of high fructose corny syrup. The short one-liners and cute sign-offs could go on ad infinitum. Even practiced texters have trouble determining the end point of a conversation, like when girls fret over a guy they like who isn't texting them back even though the last thing they wrote to them was "Bye." "But it's his turn!" they might say, as though there is some huge scoreboard that keeps track of who texted whom last and all text message sign-offs are mere place holders in the time-space continuum for one eternal conversation to pause and resume.

Links

Now Reading

Everything Is Wrong with Me: A Memoir of an American Childhood Gone, Well, Wrong, by Jason Mulgrew

I promise that one of these days I will write a book. Well, promise is a strong word. But until that day (probably) comes, you can tide yourself over reading this blog-turned-book. Then when the day comes that some reviewer writes, "Daniel Murphy's new book is just like Jason Mulgrew's only without the good parts" you can be like, "Hey, I know what he's talking about."

Now Watching

The Bachelorette, ABC, 8:00 Mondays

You guys, I don't know if I can do it. There's a "Tattoo Count" on the guys' bio pages. And Ali is like Brittany Spears without the redeeming past. Can we really do this for ANOTHER season? Shouldn't someone just be like, "We've done this 16 times! HERE IS WHERE THE LOVE IS. You can stop looking for it now"? Ah, crap. There's a ukulele. Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in with their Indignity TreatsTM.

Now Listening To

Adam Arcuragi, I Am Become Joy“Bottom of the River”

My little sister, who officially became cooler than me sometime around her thirteenth birthday, sent me this video. If this isn't what music is all about, I don't know what is. (Intercourse? Maybe intercourse.)